Changeling Translations - what's in a name

The story of changelings

As mankind spread more widely through the world,
the realms of Faerie receded, and with that the
fairy races grew weaker. The ailing sprites were
fascinated by the vitality and strength of
humanity. Hoping to bring some of that liveliness
back into their own world, the fairies took to
kidnapping human children, leaving behind not an
empty cradle, but a changeling—one of their own
number, enchanted briefly into the likeness of the
stolen infant. By the time the parents discovered
that something was amiss, the fairies were safe in
their own land, chittering over their prize.

No fairy changeling could feign the vitality of a
child for long. Their deception was hampered all
the more by the fact that the substitute was
usually an aged member of the fairy tribe, happy
to be pampered by a mortal mother, but unable to
permanently conceal his scrawniness and ugliness.
The common people had an arsenal of tests for a
suspected changeling. Many were cruel ordeals.
The infant might be placed on a shovel and held
over a fire, or it might be left on a dunghill all day,
exposed to the weather.

If the child was indeed a fairy in disguise, the
outcome was happy. The instant that torture was
threatened, the elf would shed its mortal likeness,
cackle and vanish, while from the cradle would
come the cry of the mother’s true baby, whom
the fairies always returned when their deed was
revealed. But if the child was not a
changeling—and babies who failed to thrive or
were transformed overnight by illness often fell
under suspicion—the effect of a trial by fire or
exposure could be tragic.

Fortunately, there were gentler ways to unmask a
changeling, and they were effective. One Irish
tale tells of a mother who suspected that her
child had been replaced by an impostor from the
fairy world. On the advice of a neighbor, the
mother set a giant pot of water to boil over the
fire and brought in a basket of a dozen fresh
eggs. She sat cracking the eggs one by one,
pouring the liquid into a bucket and arranging the
shells in a row on the hearth. This mysterious
business became too much for the imp’s curiosity,
and he sat up and asked what she was doing. “I’m
brewing, my son,” she answered.

“Oh,” shrieked the fairy, rising to its feet in the
wildly swinging cradle, “I’m fifteen hundred years
old, and I never saw anyone brew beer from
eggshells before!”

This proved that the child was an impostor, but
before the mother could even threaten the
intruder, her own child was back in its cradle
again.